Hi! I’m not usually a participant in this group but wanted to solicit some expert advice. I administer DMA comprehensive exams at my school. The format of the exam is very open-ended; I just ask students to analyze two pieces. One of the pieces will be 17th–19th century classical music; the other piece will be 20th–21st c. Students are exp…[Read more]

Congratulations to Aleksandra (Sasha) Drozzina, who recently defended her dissertation “Schnittke, Gubaidulina, and Pärt: Religion and Spirituality during the Late Thaw and Early Perestroika.” This was written at Louisiana State University, under the supervision of Inessa Bazayev. Looking forward to reading Sasha’s work!

Check out some of Philip Ewell’s recent publications on Russian-language music theory:

“On Rimsky-Korsakov’s False (Hexatonic) Progressions Outside the Limits of a Tonality,” in Music Theory Spectrum, Fall 2019 https://academic.oup.com/mts/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/mts/mtz020/5688659

“On the Russian Concept of Lad, 1830–1945…[Read more]

Hi all,

I’ve posted the CFP on SMT Announce a couple of times, but I wanted to give JIG folks specifically a reminder that the submission deadline for the Issues in Contemporary Jazz Conference is this Friday. I hope y’all submit any papers and/or scores you’ve been working on! Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Adam

Hello everyone. Is this the first discussion on the new site?

I teach forms and analysis for beginners. The teacher of a parallel group uses Russian terminology and theory, and I see that we are not at all matching, e.g. what he teaches as “phrase” is more-or-less equivalent to Caplin’s “basic idea”; and for him “period” need not have a structure…[Read more]

Dear SMT-Rus members,

Welcome to the SMT Russian Music Theory Interest Group! This is our group’s official web page starting January 2020, and I am Ellen Bakulina, chair of the group for the 2020-2022 term. All information pertaining to the group’s activity will be available here. Please note that the RMTIG Google group will no longer be used for…[Read more]

Dear SMT JIG,

I wonder if any of you would give me your opinion on a question that’s been bugging me for ages. Let’s say we agree that you can reduce rhythm changes to |I|V|I|V| in the first four measures. Do you hear those Vs as back-related? Front-related? Depends on comping vs. soloing? Depends on the line being played? Depends on something…[Read more]

Hi all! I hope all has been well since our meeting in Columbus last month, and you all are surviving the end of the school year grading piles. I have been spending this year (taking a break from academia) in the Kansas City area, which is such a rich geographic location in relation to jazz history’s roots in blues and proto-bebop. Something my…[Read more]

Dear SMT Jazz Interest Group members,

We conducted our 25th annual meeting in Columbus. Twenty-seven individuals attended. After my opening welcome—in which I hoped to convey that our group is open to everyone interested in jazz theory and analysis at any career stage—Janna Saslaw announced the winner of the Steve Larson Award for Jazz Sch…[Read more]